BANFF and Buchan area committee’s decision to implement traffic calming measures in Kirkton Road and surrounding streets may have been influenced by erroneous data recorded by the radar boxes installed in the estate.

In an attempt to try and find a suitable solution Councillor Ian Tait has contacted area manager, Malcolm McAuslin, expressing his concerns over a number of issues and advising him that he would be “happy to arrange a meeting with residents, council officers, police and other parties, and to involve the local community in finding a solution acceptable to all to achieve the desired result.”

In an email to Mr McAuslin, Councillor Tait expressed concern that the 85%ile figure used to justify speed humps throughout the estate was for the whole area as opposed to individual streets and stated he regarded that as a deficiency.

He has also asked for the data collected from the radar boxes to be checked and informed Mr McAuslin of anomalies found in the data recorded by the radar boxes.

Councillor Tait said: “My constituent found anomalies in the data recorded by radar boxes in her own street, when this was checked by the officers using a different kind of device in place of the radar box, it was found she was right and the radar box had been recording excessive speeds more than once.

“The officers queried this with the suppliers who said that they were aware that the radar boxes did malfunction.

“In view of the fact that the supplier has confirmed the boxes malfunction and that at least one radar box has malfunctioned, it is reasonable to infer this may be true for the data collected by other radar boxes and therefore the data from all the boxes should have been checked out before the report came back to the committee in March and I would ask that this be done now as was done before. This has not been done and I regard that as a deficiency,” he says.

Councillor Tait continued: “in view of the above and of the fact that the supplier has confirmed the radar boxes do malfunction and that there is at least one example of this malfunction in monitoring the Kirkton Road area speeds, the council has a duty to check the data from the other radar boxes on the other streets too, otherwise we cannot be sure that the 30-35mph range is correct as given in the reports to committee and used to support the recommendation by officers to lay down the cushions to overrule the huge amount of opposition by local residents.”

He adds: “This is a classic example of where the council could have involved the local community in trying to find a solution acceptable to them and to achieve the desired result.

“Instead, the council is now seen as acting like a dictator forcing these humps on the huge numbers of residents against their wishes and who have said they would be very happy to work with all parties to achieve a solution.

“I would be very happy to arrange a meeting with residents, council officers, police and any other parties in order to achieve a solution.”

Trending

Man charged after break-ins at Fraserburgh Coastguard

REVEALED: The rarest £1 coin you must NOT cash in

The full list of Ryanair cancellations and what to do if you’re affected